Dublin man to be buried alive to protest drug addiction crisis

John Edwards and his wife Trish

Mental health campaigner John Edwards will be buried alive in Dublin, Florida, and Baltimore to raise awareness.

Recovering addict John Edwards will be buried alive three times this month.

He has chosen to be buried in Florida (where 6,000 people died from overdoses last year), Baltimore (where the world's biggest drug clinic is located) and his native Dublin, Ireland.

Each time, the 62-year-old from Clontarf will be buried 4ft underground for 48 hours. His actions are in order to attempt to help people struggling with suicidal thoughts or depression.

While under the soil, he will take calls from people who “need someone to talk to.”

This is because his special 'coffin' is kitted out with WiFi and tubes for food and water.

According to The Times, Edwards got clean from a drug addiction almost 30 years ago.

After attending many funerals of peers who lost their lives to heroin overdoses, he said he began to wonder what they would have wanted to say "from beyond the grave."

Edwards wrote on Instagram, "Drug deaths in Ireland are 3 times higher than the European average. We have to do something to reach the lost, addicted, suicidal and broken in our nations. Please pray for us for effective reach to millions of people around the world, protection (its dangerous) for finance to come in. (Its expensive) for the suicidal, addicted, lost, broken to be reached very effectively."

He previously told the Irish Independent ahead of being 'buried' for 48 hours in Belfast last year that, "This is about bringing people together, interacting with them and offering help and support and words of life from the grave. I am a committed Christian but we welcome all-comers joining in."